Blog Number 412

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

When the wife finally got home yesterday from her outing and some grocery shopping we had an hour or two before we needed to head out again.  I opted not to go out to the son's recital and our flock group since I was still contagious but I could not stay in the house any longer.  I can only take so much 1 on 2 dog time and I had had my fill for the day.  They are ok in small doses and they are usually ok when there are other humans around but I just get tired of worrying what they are up to or being their entertainment.  If I let them outside to play, they tend to find things to chew on in the garage.  Typically we don't know what these items are until we walk the back yard and find remnants.  I swear these dogs are part goat.

The latest chew thing is these orange cones that we bought in Texas for the son and daughter to practice soccer drills.  My typical practice is to take whatever it is that the dogs are chewing on and beat them with it.  In my mind I am associating pain with the item and (hopefully) this will then transfer of a negative connotation with the previously chewed item.  While this works occassionally, I think Nina is so smart that she weighs in her mind the pleasure to pain ratio (will the joy I get from chewing this item out weigh the pain of the beating with said item?).  She is too smart for her own good I think.  In this case, after a small beating, I placed the cone on her head and she just sat there in humble, submissive mode so I had her stay long enough for the picture.  Oreo (above right) just looks guilty in general which means that I just don't catch him at whatever it was that he was into out there while Nina was being caught chewing.

Anyway, as I mentioned, once the family was out for the evening, I got in the car and drove.  I decided to head to the Goodwill store and was able to pick up a few CDs...

• Relient K - "mmhmm" - 2004: I have been watching a few auctions on ebay and had in my mind that I would pay up to $5 including shipping should one auction end that low.  Fortunately I was able to grab it locally for $2 in great condition.  I am hoping the son will like this one as they are a little punkish and might give us some relief from constant Stellar Kart songs.  Here's hoping.
• Vangelis - "Themes" - 1989: For those of you non Goodwill shoppers, Goodwill has a color coding price sticker system where each week's new items is given a different color.  Basically once an item has been at a store for more than a few weeks, it immediately drops to 1/2 prices.  This is of course based on the sticker color having been the color uses a few weeks ago.  This CD and the next 2 listed below were all 1/2 price.  This one does include the Chariots of Fire theme which is worth the $1 itself.
• Jon and Vangelis - "The Friends Of Mr. Cairo" - 1981: Other than Chariots of Fire, I have not heard much of Vangelis' work.  I love Jon Anderson's voice (from Yes) and do own a hard to find Christmas album by him along with a solo release that I grabbed for a $1 earlier this year.  Since this release is pushing 30 years old I am not holding up my hopes too high.
• Jon and Vangelis - "Private Collection" - 1983: I guess someone who was a fan was dumping their Vangelis collection on this particular Goodwill store.  Their loss, my gain I suppose.  I imagine when I am gone, this CD will find its way back to another Goodwill store and my loss will be their gain (assuming CDs are still around at that time).  There are still many cassettes, LPs and a few 8 tracks at this Goodwill and a few old timers flipping through them so I would imagine if I live another 30 or 40 years then CDs will still be accepted at 2nd hand stores.

The wife and I were able to finish a movie this morning.

• December Boys: I saw the previews for this one on another movie we watched a few years ago at the movie theater.  Basically it is about 4 boys who live at an orphanage whose birthdays are all in the month of December.  They get to take a holiday to the coast (this movie is set in Australia) and have time of discovery.  I am always impressed when child actors can pull off serious roles and not muck up the movie and in this case there were 4 of them.  I was a little shocked that a side character who was supposed to be a young teenage girl was actually 21 at the time of the filming of the movie.  There is one small kissing scene where I was thinking, "how can they let 15 year olds do this on camera?"  Well I will tell you how, they are not 15 (or 16 or 18 even).  Maybe I should IMDB these movies before I start watching them.  That might save me some inner conflict.

I am holding out hopes for a nap today but they are fading as the wife announced that she would like to go (i.e. we ARE going) to the Goodwill down in Carmel.  This will keep my nap free weekend streak going at 4 weeks (for those of you keeping track).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 411

Greetings and welcome to today's (2nd) random thought.

Man am I bored.  It is just shortly after 11 in the morning and I am really, really bored.  The biggest excitement was blogging earlier today.  My home is just no fun without my family here.  When they were gone on vacation to Texas I at least had movies to keep me company but since I am too cheap to spend 50 cents at the library I don't even have that.  I have killed the last 4 hours or so by finishing up a movie I started a while back (see review below), listening to some music, shaving off my 2 week's worth of beard, swapping dogs in and out of their respective cages, changing my TX plates for my new IN plate on the buick and in general doing nothing (in general).

I really should not be on the internet since I do not have a cell phone and someone might actually be trying to call me.  When I did not renew my cell phone a few months ago, I asked my manager if that would be a problem.  I wanted to make sure that if they needed to get ahold of me (which has happened a few times in my career) that I would be reachable.  I was slightly hinting at maybe needing a company provided phone but all I got was a confirmation that I am truly not as important to my company as I thought that I was.  "No, Jon, that's OK as you are not an on call type of person.  Feel free to have the only method of reaching you as telegraph or smoke signals.  Really, you are not that important."  I am translating of course as those are not the exact words that they used.  Since that time, I truly have not been needed but at least I will know when I truly have arrived at the level of importance that I thought I was, namely when they tell me that I will be issued a company provided cell phone.

My sickness is still bad enough that I likely will not attend anything this evening that we had planned.  We have a recital for the son and a meeting with our (new) flock group (whose last 2 meetings we have missed for one reason or another, in fact, we have never attended despite "joining" this group several months ago).  Hopefully the wife and a kid or 2 can go tonight lest we lose are membership.  OK I really need to get off now (after a short movie review that is).

• The Hudsucker Proxy: This is your typical boy graduates from business school, boy goes to big city, boy lands job in the mail room of big corporate but later that same day is promoted to president, boy meets girl who is really a reporter but pretends to be his secretary, boy succeeds despite obstacles, boy's lack of experience lands him out on the street, boy meets former president (now and angel since he is dead due to jumping out of the 44th floor window), boy heeds dead man's advice, boy gets with girl, boy continues as president story.  This had Tim Robbins (who I did not realize was in Twister which is the son's favorite movie lately but I did enjoy him in The Shawshank Redemption which is one of my all time favorite movies) and Paul Newman and had the same sort of oddness as Big Fish did.  If you liked Big Fish, I think you will like this one just don't watch any part of it with my kids since they just asked all kinds of questions that I could not possibly of answered.  Fortunately they only watched about 15 minutes with me and it was early in the film before things got really weird (or really weirder).

Thanks for reading my (2nd set of) Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 410

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I have been sick the last 2 or 3 days.  Nothing too serious, just a stuffy head, runny nose, aches, etc.  I am starting to get addicted to the black cherry cough drops actually.  The one thing that I hoped to avoid was the cure.  More specifically, the wife's cure.  You have to know my wife, but she almost gets a little excited when one of us gets sick.  As a family we rarely get sick so when it does happen, she goes into combat mode.  The kids stayed with a grandparent last night so the wife headed to the health food store with me in tow.  Here is what awaited my when we arrived back home...

• Vitamin C (lots and lots)
• Vitamin B
• Fermented Cod Liver Oil (cinamon flavor)
• Zinc
• Garlic Oil
• Tei-Fu
• Echinacea (Not pictured)

The cure is truly almost as bad as the disease.  I dutifully took tablet after tablet and drank whatever was put in front of me.  Now I do admit to feeling a little better this morning but we cannot prove / disprove that the above listed items had any effect.  The cost of all this?  I am glad you asked.  We were out about $90 when all was said and done.  Keeping in mind that we can use these products over time.  The family does take cod liver oil each morning and vitamin B & C as well.

One good side effect of being ill is that your appetite is down and as such I can report to you that as of 5:30 this morning, I have officially reached my goal of 180 lbs (179.8 to be precise).  If I had known this side effect, I would have got sick last week before my birthday.  I think only part of the weight loss can be attributed to not eating as much.  The other part has to do with the total amount of weight I have lost to using kleenex.  My runny nose has got to account for a good 1/2 lb or so (sorry, that was a little gross wasn't it - but trust me, this is not an over estimate).

The wife is going to an all day (well from 8 - 3) BeautiControl conference today so until the kids come home it will just be me and the dogs.  Looking out the back window just now, I don't think any outside projects will be gettng done today so I don't know what I will do with my time exactly.  Hopefully whatever I do, it will be blog-worthy (one can hope, can't one?).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 409

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My son has a slight problem.  He likes to take pictures.  Actually is it probably more accurate to say that he likes to play with the digital camera.  When I transfer my photos off of the SD card that is in our camera, I am concerned by what I find also on that card.  Let me provide you with a few examples...

That is 3 (count 'em 3) pictures of the toilet in the hall bathroom.  Oh there were also close ups of the sink among other things.  Here is another example...

That would be an extreme close up of his right nostril.  There are lots of close up shots of various sections of his face in our picture collection.  What I am sharing with you today is only a minute sample.  In fact, it took some time to pick the ones I wanted to share with you.  I have spoke to him about this on numerous occasions but to no avail.  I guess I should just be happy that he lives in the digital age and I am not paying to have these pictures developed.

I had to head back into the office tonight from 6:15 to around 8:15.  This sucks the life out of an evening with the family.  But those crazy Singapore people have the audacity of being 12 hours ahead of us.  It did not help when I dialed into the call that they were happy about it being Friday (since it was indeed Friday there at that time albeit early Friday morning).  I have to juggle meetings next week with India (9 1/2 hours ahead of us) and Australia (14 hours ahead of us) so it might be a weird work week.
Well the wife is passed out on the chair again and it does not look like a position I should let her linger in for long.  Maybe I should take a close up picture of her...nyah.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 408

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Today I got to (had to) go to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) to get license plates for my Buick and to get an Indiana drivers license.  I had put this off as long as I could but my Texas plates expire at the end of the month and even though my Texas driver's license is still good for a few more years I thought it a good idea to trade it in for a local one.  Our BMV is no longer open on Monday's due to budget cuts but from my experience in getting plates for the Kia minivan in May, the lines are quite short.  I think that many of the renewals are done online or via the kiosk in the front section of the BMV and that allows for the shorter lines.  I researched what documents I would need beforehand in hopes of not having to arrive without proper credentials.  It is quite incredible what you need...

• One document proving your identity (birth certificate, passport, etc); and
• One document proving your Social Security number (Social Security Card, W2, etc); and
• One document proving your lawful status in the United States (birth certificate, passport, etc); and
• Two documents proving your Indiana residency (bill from utility, bank statement, pay stub, loan payment book, etc)

One thing I did not plan on was having to take a written test in order to get my license.  I had not studied but in typical macho persona I decided to take the test anyway rather than grab a booklet and return another day.  I finished the 50 question test in about 20 minutes or so and I was quite surprised to see the BMV worker grade the test manually since I used a #2 pencil to color in the little multiple choice answer sheet.  In the end I missed 2 of the multiple choice section (the first 34 questions).  You are allowed to miss 6 of these.  I missed a question about the distance behind another car that you are allowed to have your bright lights on and also a question about the standard speed limit for an Indiana highway.  The last 16 questions I aced as they were on road signs.  The 48 out of 50 ties the score the wife racked up in May so neither of us have bragging rights (though she did tell me that she challenged the answer on one of her missed questions - she is rather competitive and despite the question having nothing to do with her getting her license or not she still belabored the point with the poor BMV helper).  The rest of my visit was pretty straightforward and I got out for around $100 (which was lower than I anticipated).  I did not get around to swapping my Indiana plates for my Texas ones tonight as the daughter is not feeling well and the wife is at a kick off meeting for a fall children's Wednesday night program at our church.  So I get to enjoy my lovely Texas plates for one more day.  I am going to miss having plates on the front and back of my car since Indiana only gives you one plate.  I will have to say that my picture on my driver's license is easily the best I have had in my driving career.  It is also the first time that I did not have the "has to were glasses or contacts while driving" restriction.  Also, I got to update my weight (my old license said 195) so I proudly instructed the BMV person to change that to 180.

Album Review - Stryper -  Murder By Pride (2009): I received this CD for my birthday on Monday from the wife.  I have been a Stryper fan since their first LP in 1984.  This is their 25th year as a band (with anniversary tour to boot).  This is not on a major record label so it suffers a bit from big production $'s but this is better than their 2005 Reborn CD by far.  Long time fans of Stryper will hear a little bit of To Hell With The Devil era songs (Murder By Pride, 4 Leaf Clover, etc) along with some newer sounds (The Plan, Mercy Over Blame, Everything) and they even cover a song off of their re-release of their first LP (My Love I'll Always Show) although other than the lyrics, you would never tell it is the same song.  I don't think that this release will not win them any new fans but old fans will not be disappointed.  The obligatory cover of Peace Of Mind (a Boston song) is good but I prefer the original Boston version.  Thanks again to the wife for this perfect birthday present.  The CD was not available locally anywhere and I had just not got around to ordering it online.  I toyed with the idea of driving the 4 hours to the closest tour stop (in Ohio) but it will likely not happen.  Maybe I can catch them on their 30th anniversary tour.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 407

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

We received a phone call around 5 Saturday night.  The wife was just getting ready to boil some water for dinner (pasta) but that was interrupted by the call.  It was an (last minute) invite to a cookout.  I say last minute as the reply to the question, "What time?" was, "Now."  10 miuntes later we were pulling up to our friend's house.  The first think I noticed was this bush with honkin' big flowers...

Now my hand is about 8" long and this flower's diameter was every bit that length if not more.  This house is a recent (< 1 year) purchase so the owner's did not have the family / genus / species of this flowering plant.  Pretty though, eh?  Anyway, we hung out, ate burgers and dogs from the grill and just had a good time in general.  I even got to play with one of those small netbooks that (I used to think that) I wanted.  The keyboard is mercilessly small for my hands (did I mention they are 8"?).  I suppose I could get used to the keyboard if needed.  I had planned on practicing my solo for church the next day but we arrived home close to 9 so that was out of the question.  Based on the response after the service the next day, I did not need the extra practice.  It is a great feeling not to mess a song up.  It is an even greater feeling to pick the right song (and one in your range) and be able to touch people's lives with song.  I had more positive responses than for any other song that I have performed.  I truly proud moment.

Since yesterday was my birthday, we did our traditional birthday dinner whereby the birthday person picks the restaurant and receives the only menu and gets to pick everyone's food.  Since my son is on a gluton free diet, I decided on a Thai restaurant so we did not call attention to his gluton-free-ness.  Rice does not contain gluton so Pud Thai and Pineapple Fried Rice were my choices along with some egg rolls.  Even though I only ordered 2 adult entrees, it was more than enough food for everyone to get their fill and for the wife and I both to have nice sized portions for lunch today.  Incredible the portion sizes these days!  I did make a slight miscalculation on what "medium" spicy might mean to a Thai person (hint, it is NOT what an American would call medium).  The kids are not that into spicy foods but they did OK.  The leftovers were great today.

I went back and forth on continuing to journal my weight daily.  I knew that I would but up this morning since I also had lunch with my mother yesterday (Red Lobster).  I did not overeat really for either meal but my body is just not used to restaurant food any more.  Perhaps another day I will share my weight from this morning but I did want to share with you proof that I really did make it to 182 as the below pic is from the morning of my birthday.

I don't think I ever mentioned that I weigh myself sans clothing (e.g. nude, naked, bare skinned, au naturel, unclad, free from the fetters of clothing, in my birthday suit, etc).  Mercifully, my hands were steady and all you see is my feet and ankles.

• Copying Beethoven: I think I have mentioned that I like historical films.  Through in a familiar character with a few made up (non historical) roles and you just about can't go wrong.  This movie from 2006 stars Ed Harris (who I have seen in Needful Things, Apollo 13, National Treasure II, etc) and Diane Kruger (National Treasure I and II).  The main character is the music however and takes a back seat to no one.  There is one long scene in the middle that is really dramatic where Beethoven (by then, deaf) directs the orchestra with the help from the Diane Kruger character who guides him while hiding in the pit with the orchestra.  It is very moving when the performance is over and Beethoven has to be turned around to "see" the ovation he receives.  The ending was kind of weird but could not have topped that middle scene anyway.  Recommended to anyone.

We just started December Boys but only got about 20 minutes in before the wife begged off and fell asleep in the chair.  I made note of the time of the movie and then proceeded to blog.  Earlier tonight however the son and I booked our hotel for our Decatur, IL trip to see Stellar Kart in concert.  For some reason he is really into hotels now.  He likes to read the reviews on places like hotels.com and also to look at the pictures of the rooms, pool area, breakfast area, etc.  He is over the top with this but booking the room was euphoric for him and he was still talking about it as I tucked him in tonight.  I spent the extra money and got a nice hotel (as opposed to the cheap dives I spent tons of weekends at when I was attempting to make it on the Pro Bowler's Tour).  We will probably be there early on our check in day and stay late on our check out day so an indoor pool was a must.  I am really looking forward to this, we have not taken many trips alone together and Stellar Kart is like is most favorite band in the world.  I am sure the hotel booking will make tomorrow's blog on his site.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 406

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

All God's Creatures Great and Small, Created Equal One and All!

So says the text on the side of a little bug cage shaped like a mailbox that my daughter made / decorated in church today.  Like most crafts that she makes on Sunday's, it did not make it all the way home without a little damage but it remained pretty much in tact.  She commented that she might catch butterflies or maybe lightning bugs and place them in this little cage.  We admired it and then we moved on.

Fast forward until tonight.  After watch the first 2 episodes of season one of The Muppet Show (that I got off of ebay for $15.01 shipped) we had about an hour until the kid's bedtime.  We decided to play a little Uno to finish the weekend.  About 4 hands in, the wife noticed a small bug crawling across the table and then quickly flicked it with her finger.  The bug did not go far however as it hit the above bug catcher with a thud.  The daughter (not a big fans of bugs in general) was watching this event with great interest.  The bug catcher was closest to her actually.  The wife suggested that the daughter use her craft for its intended purpose.  With almost no time elapsing, the daughter picked up the craft and stated emphatically, "No, let's use it to kill it!"  Crunch, one of God's Creatures (equal one and all) was dead.

It took us some time to stop laughing (the wife and I at the cruel irony of it all and the kids just laughing at us laughing).  When we were able to speak again, the wife reminded me of another recent incident with a bug only this time inside of our van.  I was driving (somewhere, I don't remember where) and there was a lightning bug in the car.  These things are quite harmless and don't even dart around a lot so they are not even annoying.  Anyway, the wife caught the bug and then rolled down the window and shooed the bug outside.  She thought she was doing a good deed and had we not been going 55 mph I would have agreed with her.  I pointed out that going from 0 to 55 in 0.0 seconds was probably a little beyond the design of this poor bug's wings.  To top it all off, in less than a minute we were stopped at a stop light (where she could have let the bug out safe and sound).

After retelling this story to the kids it was again a few minutes before we could speak coherently again.  Tears were wiped away from laughing until we cried and we moved on with our game of Uno (I lost).  As I mark off this day on the calendar hanging on the wall next to my computer I say goodbye to my 30's.  They say you are only as old as you feel and I think I still feel 14.  I think my mirror is a liar (a convincing liar but a liar nonetheless).  No, I am still that young teenager that likes 80's hair band metal and pop, that likes playing Dig Dug, Pac Man, Donkey Kong and all those great games, still that kid that thinks it would be cool to spend the night at a friend's house and order pizza and stay up until 3 am playing Atari Bowling, in short, I am still the same person that I was 25 or so years ago only (hopefully) a little wiser and more grateful for what he has.  So I am not shedding a tear for the passing of this decade of my life and I am just going to end this night like any normal night (with a blog and a little quiet time with the wife after the kids go to bed).  See ya on the other side...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Tuesday Weigh In (Special Birthday Edition)

Greetings,

    I have done all that I can do (short of some desperation type moves) to meet my goal.  10 days ago I weighed 182 and was poised to meet my goal.  Today I weigh that same amount and sit here groggy eyed and scratch my head on how I could have possibly not been able to lose 2 lbs in 10 days.  Oh well, tonight is my birthday dinner and I am not weighing in tomorrow (or maybe the next day and the day after that).  I do have another goal in mind and will start in on that after the Labor Day weekend.  It might even involve a challenge with some fellow bloggers that you can follow on our blogs (so you hear both sides of the story, it should be fun).  Thank you for following along in my journey these last few months.  I feel better physically and I do look better in the mirror (the wife confirms this each morning as I "pose" in front of our bathroom mirror).  All in all I am glad I made the journey and not that disappointed that I did not make it to 180.  I will eventually, that I am sure of.

Jon

Date	Weight1	Weight2	Weight3	Average	DaysToGo	Lost	Last7	Pace
08/24/09	182.0	182.0	182.0	182.0	0	30.67	1.33	182.0

Blog Number 404

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I remember a time when I actually took the time to think up a title for each post.  Then some time later I give up and just started counting them.  Who knows, maybe someday I will return to thinking up applicable titles (but not today).  I spent part of the morning catching up on some other blogs that I follow and catching up on some Facebook maintenance (one week on facebook and I already have 80+ friends).  I then went about re-ripping some CDs at a lower bitrate so I could cram more songs on my pathetically small, Sansa m230 512MB mp3 player.  I use VBR0 with LAME for normal ripping to my computer but dumb it down to 96 Kbit/s for my mp3 player.  Given that I have bad quality headphones, I cannot really tell the difference between 96 and vbr0 and not having to swap out the songs every few days is a nice feature of the smaller, lower quality mp3 files.  I use Audiograbber to do my ripping.  I like the feature set and the price ($0) of this software.  One thing that always cracks me up is the meter with the yellow bar on it below.

I would think that the programmers of this software could have come up with something better than, "This meter is now used by the codec for no particular reason."  But hey, for the price I guess I cannot complain.  I fit about 12 CDs on the player (as opposed to only 4 with the higher quality rip) and now get to spend part of each morning pre-treadmill deciding which album to sweat to that morning.

The below pic is looking out the back window.  Notice the interesting artwork a bird left for us.  I am sad to report that this artwork has been there for 2 or 3 weeks (maybe longer).  Accessing the window for cleaning is not really possible without a ladder (which we currently do not own).  I might be able to wade into the landscaping that is below this window but I have to admit that I have not been properly motivated to do so yet.  Still, the skill and aim of the bird who left this for us is quite impressive.  I mean, there is the fact that he (or she) had to be traveling fast enough when dropping the load to hit the window and yet still avoid the outside of the house and the roofline.  I am impressed.

The wife is gone (hosting a book club that occurs once a month).  The kids are just now back from the mother-in-law's house so they are (of course) on a non normal feeding schedule.  The audacity of grandmas to throw off my schedule!  So now I am waiting for them to announce that the breakfast has worn off and that more food is needed.  It is then that I will have to factor in the late hour and mine and my wife's eating schedule to determine the proper amount of food to sync us back up again.  Fortunately I have a lot of experience at this (or is that perhaps unfortunately?).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Tuesday Weigh In (Special Sunday Edition)

Greetings,

    Hoping against hope, I met the scales for one of the last times before my birthday.  While I can celebrate a little in that I am now at my lowest weight, I still am 1 2/3 lbs away from my goal.  Looking back, there are a few days that I did manage to lose enough weight to meet my goal.  June 23rd, July 12th, and just a few days ago on August 20th so it is not unprecidented.  We will have to weight (pun!) and see.

Jon

Date	Weight1	Weight2	Weight3	Average	DaysToGo	Lost	Last7	Pace
08/23/09	182.0	181.5	181.5	181.7	1	31.00	1.33	181.4

Blog Number 402

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

First these 2 pictures...

 

These photos are related but you will have to read the story to see how.  Yesterday morning sometime around 7:30 there was a knock on our door.  This is really odd since no one has knocked on our door in the 5 months we have lived here.  Also, that early in the morning is an odd time for visitors anyway.  We looked out the window and saw this white SUV at the very end of our driveway (adding to the oddness factor a little).  Once we opened the door we were met with a teenager (on her way to school).  She could not have been much more than 5 feet tall.  Her car had died (as luck would have it) near our house.  She only asked to use our phone and called her mother to ask her for help.  She handed the phone back in and then waited out in her vehicle.  Once her mother arrived and confirmed the car was truly dead, she headed back up our drive to tell us that they were going to call a tow truck.  I told her that it was no problem and that we could drive around her to get in and out of the driveway.  I had to leave a few minutes later but the wife later told me that a tow truck did arrive only a short time later.  That was that, end of excitement.

Fast forward to last night around 9 pm when we heard another knock at our door (9 pm is an equally odd time for our door to be knocked upon).  It was the same girl from the morning only this time she was holding brownies (warm, fresh from the oven brownies).  She also explained that the alternator was bad.  We thanked her and told her that we could sympathize with her in that the wife's vehicle around the time of our marriage ate a few alternators as well and then she was on her way (again).

So you see, these two photos ARE related.

• Chalk: This is a mockumentory.  We did not know this for the fist hour or so.  It (pretends to) follow a group of teachers through a school year.  There is a first year history teacher, an in your face PE teacher, a teacher turned vice principal and a few others.  I did read on IMDB that the cast was mostly real students and teachers with a few actors thrown in.  Once I realized that this was fiction I enjoyed it more (it was almost more believable then for some reason).  Anyway, not sure I can recommend it but it did hold our interest.
• Chaos Theory: This one was pretty good.  I did not recognize any of the actors at all but an interesting story line.  A man who is into organization, making lists, etc and is even a corporate circuit speaker on the subject has his life thrown into chaos by a few coincidental events that makes him rethink everything.  I definitely recommend this one.  As with Chalk, it took us a few days to get through these.  I think I am getting to enjoy watching movies over 2 - 4 sittings for some odd reason.  It is like reading a book kind of.

OK, kids are with the mother-in-law and we are just getting home from a viewing as a friend's mother recently passed away.  Time to start another movie (Copying Beethoven).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Tuesday Weigh In (Special Saturday Edition)

Greetings,

    I was not really hoping for a loss this morning since we ate at Panera on the way home from the viewing last night.  I was relieved I guess that I maintained yesterday's weight.  OK, so how do you lose 2 lbs in 2 days?  Forget it.  I think I shall just have to be happy with losing 30 lbs in 4 months.  Still though, to be this close...

Jon

Date	Weight1	Weight2	Weight3	Average	DaysToGo	Lost	Last7	Pace
08/22/09	182.0	182.0	182.0	182.0	2	30.67	0.00	181.5

Blog Number 400

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

OK, not to harp on this point but in 4 days I will be 40.  Lately I have been dealing at work with users in the Asia-Pacific region (Singapore and Australia mainly).  This requires some adjustmens / sacrifices on my part (and on the part of a co-worker also here in Indiana).  Mind you the AP folks come in a little early as well but hey, we are the Americans so of course it is more of a sacrifice for us!  Next week we will likely have a meeting every night (morning the next day for them) and this will start on Sunday (their Monday).  I did manager to avoid any meetings on Monday night since it is my 40th birthday (did I mention that already?) and we are going out for my birthday dinner.  After this morning's weigh in I might even be able actually to celebrate with a real meal and finish everything on my plate (instead of saving half for lunch the next day).  I mean, come on, you only turn 40 once.

• The Ring Two: I was able to get the wife to watch the first The Ring movie somehow.  She very much dislikes scary movies but it had enough of a plotline to keep her going.  Also, there are more suspense type scenes than actual gore / scary scenes.  This move carried on in the mode but try as I might I could not convince her to watch it with me so I caught 20 minutes here or there over the past week while she was gone or asleep.  I did break a rule of mine (like I did with The Fog) in that this dvd was full screen mode (what can I say, I am a purist and like only dvds in the original wide screen versions).  Anyway, plenty of good scary tense like scenes and you get a glimpse more into the background story of the Samara character.  If you liked the first one then you will like this one.  I did see where The Ring Three is in pre-production (though not with the main female character).

The son is with my mother tonight so it is just the daughter, wife and I.  I don't know what we are going to do since we only watch Little House on the Prairie as a family and as tempting as it is to pop in disc one of The Muppet Show Season One (I just got this from eBay fo $15 shipped in almost new condition - note to self, remember to leave positive feedback for seller).  Since it is already 7:20 and she is not even in the shower yet and she needs to be in bed in just over an hour, I imagine that it will not be an issue anyway.  I am up to 80 "friends" now on Facebook (does that mean I am too loose with who I am "friends" with?).  I guess I better head over there and see what's going on.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Tuesday Weigh In (Special Friday Edition)

Greetings,

    Do you ever hope against hope that something will happen when you know there is no logical reason for it to happen?  I still feel that I have an outside chance to hit the 180 even mark in 3 days.  I feel this way less today than I did yesterday but more than I did 2 days ago.  I still have the weekend and a few last minute options (the Sunday night plan might include shaving all the hair off my body and cutting my finger and toe nails really short and there is always amputation).  I don't know what is so special about 180 since as I look down at my mid section I know that I could stand to lose another 5 or 10 lbs really.  Oh well, the treadmill awaits me at this early hour.

Jon

Date	Weight1	Weight2	Weight3	Average	DaysToGo	Lost	Last7	Pace
08/21/09	182.0	182.0	182.0	182.0	3	30.67	0.00	181.2

Tuesday Weigh In (Special Thursday Edition)

Greetings,

    I had hoped this day had come a day or two earlier, the "I dunno what happened but let me take all that weight gained back" day.  I have had a few of these along the way.  Good news is that my weight loss cubemate buddy at work won't come into work and see a noose in my cubicle with me attached to it now.  It is now conceivable that I could reach my goal but the fates might still be messing with my head.

Jon

Date	Weight1	Weight2	Weight3	Average	DaysToGo	Lost	Last7	Pace
08/20/09	182.0	181.5	182.0	181.8	4	30.83	1.17	180.8

Tuesday Weigh In (Special Wednesday Edition)

Greetings,
    The countdown marches on towards 40.  One more disappointing morning on the scales.  I think the fates are just rubbing it in now.  Like it was their plan all along to let me get this close only to pull the rug out from under me.  Oh well, right after this post I am heading for the treadmill.
Jon

Date	Weight1	Weight2	Weight3	Average	DaysToGo	Lost	Last7	Pace
08/19/09	184.0	183.5	183.5	183.7	5	29.00	(0.50)	182.4

Blog Number 396

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

It is time once again to look at the abandoned web pages left in my browser as I logged off from work today.  If you recall, these are pages that I meant to read when I had a minute or two but did not quite get around to it.  Without further delay...

• Highest Paid CEO's: This was a link from the CNN Money website.  I did read it long enough to know that (by their calculation) there was one guy that pulled in $700,000,000.00 for the year.  Now, anything over $100,000.00 is hard for me to fathom.  In fact, anything over that amount is really the same amount of money in my mind (such is my total lack of ability to grasp that large amount of money).  Anyway, read this article and be aware of how much money you truly don't make.
• Cocaine on your Money: I had heard this statistic some years ago but recently hear an updated story about it on the radio on the way to work so I clicked on this CNN article but never got around to reading that 90% of all US currency contains trace amounts of cocaine.  My mind wanders to ships that are filtering sea water for trace amounts of gold for profit.  Could recovering the trace amounts of cocaine from the bills in my wallet be a potential money maker?  Who knows (but you know someone else is thinking the same thing)?
• Cash for Clunkers Effect on Used Car Sales: This is an article from a local paper.  I actually read most of this story that outlined how used car sales have been hurting since the recent stimulus promotion for turning in your older, low gas mileage car for a new one.  Methinks they exaggerate the effects a little in this argument but I will admin I had not thought about it from this angle.
• Kid's Woot: If you have never heard of woot then please move along.  Be ye warned that once you are hooked on it, there is no going back.  I saw on today's item description that they are adding a kids woot to their lineup (shirt.woot, wine.woot, sellout.woot and regular woot).  There goes another minute or two of my morning, thanks a lot woot!
• http://www.donotletevanbayhkilljobs.com: I heard this one advertised during my lunch errands on am AM talk show.  Evan Bayh is an Indiana politician and this group is against some current legislations I guess.  I still think they could have found a shorter and easier to remember web site URL.

I am desperately practicing a song that I am going to sing in church on Sunday.  When I pick a song out, I don't usually consider the important things like 1) are there a lot of lyrics to memorize 2) will I be able to hit all those high notes 3) is this a style that the average person in my congregation will like or relate to, etc.  No, I pick it out based on whether or not I like it.  It is only after I have committed to singing it that the other things come into focus.  The song I am singing this time is borderline in my range and does have what I would consider a medium amount of lyrics to memorize.  So I spend my commute time to and from work singing my lungs out and ignoring the drivers around me and what I might look like.  I am also trying to figure out how to rearrange the hard parts into something I can manage without changing the song too much.  By the time I get to Sunday morning, I will probably have practiced this song 100 times and be thoroughly sick of it (which is why I usually don't repeat songs until a year or so has passed).

Well the wife is passed out in the chair behind me so I should get off of here, fetch the puppies from their cages for one last outing before bedtime, and convince the wife to meander back to the bedroom.
Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Tuesday Weigh In

Greetings,

    Words cannot describe the level of frustration today.  For 3 days in a row my trusty scale has reported not so good things, namely no progress and a slow realization that I will likely not meet my goal by the time I reach 40.  I have racked my brain for any thing I would have eaten or exercize that I would have skipped to cause the pound or so that jumped upon me after reaching that elusive 30 lb mark earlier in the week.  I really have no idea.  Maybe something will break loose in the next 6 days but I am not getting my hopes up.

Jon

Date	Weight1	Weight2	Weight3	Average	DaysToGo	Lost	Last7	Pace
08/12/09	183.5	183.0	183.0	183.2	12	29.50	1.83	179.9
08/13/09	183.0	183.0	183.0	183.0	11	29.67	3.17	180.1
08/14/09	182.0	182.0	182.0	182.0	10	30.67	2.83	179.3
08/15/09	182.0	182.0	182.0	182.0	9	30.67	3.00	179.6
08/16/09	183.0	183.0	183.0	183.0	8	29.67	2.00	180.9
08/17/09	183.0	183.5	183.5	183.3	7	29.33	0.83	181.5
08/18/09	183.5	183.0	183.5	183.3	6	29.33	0.00	181.8

Blog Number 394

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well the weekend is about gone.  We didn't really do a lot last night or today.  The daughter had a friend over after church and while she had a blast, this blew any shot I had of a nap since fun has to include loudness at that age.  I did manage to install a towel rack for the wife this weekend.  I actually found this rack (with the screws even) out in our detached garage.  She had asked me multiple times to install it and I finally got around to it.  I got to use multiple tools (hammer and nails to make a starter hole for the screws, screwdriver, measuring tape, etc) and felt real manly doing so.

I managed to convince my body to continue on my treadmilling mornings.  This despite somehow putting on a pound between yesterday and today which put me back below the 30 lb mark and back off of a pace that will get me to 180 by my birthday.  I don't know why days like this frustrate me.  I am not frustrated by the pound as much as I am about this anomaly mucking up my pretty weight spreadsheet.  Anyway, here is a pic of me as I headed out to the garage and the treadmill (don't you wish you looked this good in a headband?).

Note also the shirt.  I don't know why I like this tshirt so much but I just do.  I did shave the beard off after my 33 minutes of sweating.  It is/was at that nice scratchy feeling length   While I am in picture sharing mode, here are a few pet pictures.  Oreo is really good at looking pathetic, especially when he is jailed inside his little cage.  He still sleeps all night in the cage and usually does not complain but he sure pours on the guilt when you look at him.  Below that is my fat cat.  He is so lazy that he lays down while he drinks water.  He has become quite useless to the wife and I and but for the son's undying love for him I am afraid he would be looking for a new home.

Better Off Dead...: We lasted about 30 minutes or so on this 1985 movie that is a left over from when I was marching through the alphabet of the local library's DVD collection.  I had low expectations based on the year of release and plotline outlined on the back of this DVD.  I was thinking it would be a movie in the same vein as The Breakfast Club or Pretty In Pink (which also had John Cusack in it).  I had recently seen John Cusack in 1408 and I do see that he was in Runaway Jury though I don't remember him in it.  We also recognized Yuji Okumoto (not by name mind you) from The Karate Kid II (he played Chozen, someone Daniel-son fought).  Anyway, the comedy was dated and I was not really a fan of this genre of movies anyway.  I think I was making a snack in the kitchen during part of the 30 minutes we lasted otherwise I would have turned it off sooner.  It did also contain Curtis Armstrong (which I remembered from the TV show  Moonlighting).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Blog Number 393

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well it took less than one before the thing I feared happened.  As mentioned in my last blog, I bowed to the pressure of about 50 people and joined the Facebook world.  I had resisted up until this time since my small experience with Facebook did not go well.  I visited a friend's page and someone else had posted a reply that contained some questionable pictures.  Last night when I joined I sent out about 20 or 30 invites and by this morning I had 17 friends already and a few welcome type posts.  This afternoon when I checked, sure enough there on my wall was a picture with multiple naked people on it.  Incredible, a "friend" of a "friend" had evidently posted this.  This is the flaw of Facebook, you can choosed your friends but you can't choose your friend's friends.  Oh well, I blocked that friend's posts from appearing and hopefully that is the end of that.  More to come on this I am sure.

This afternoon we headed to a local art show.  This was the art of a group of kids that attended an art camp over the summer.  My daughter did attend this but we could not find most of her art when we walked around the small, four room house that hosted this art.  Below is a small example of the art we saw.

 

We did not stay long since it was quite crowded and, well, you can see the quality of art that was available to entertain us.  After we arrived back home it was time to start our dinner.  Since the son is on a gluton free diet, we all are in a sense.  The below pictured pizza has a crust that is gluton free (and subsequently taste free as well).

This crust came from a french bread / pizza crust mix and had the texture of yellow cake.  It kinda tasted like french bread I guess (who am I kidding, not really).  The toppings were good and in the end it performed the crust duties of the pizza just fine (namely providing a canvas for the toppings which in this case were cheese, pepperoni and ham).  We have enough left over for tomorrow's lunch (as we usually do).  On to the movie review.

• Premonition: I figured the wife would like this one for even though it is sort of a thriller, it does revolve around a story about a husband and a wife.  Sandra Bullock is her normal self.  I remember liking her in Speed and the wife liking her in Miss Congeniality.  I do remember her in Demolition Man and The Net (not good).  I do recall her being a voice in The Prince Of Egypt as well.  This was a neat twist on an old plotline (seeing into the future).  The kid actors did a good enough job (bad kid actors can really ruin a good movie ya know) and the supporting cast did a good job of staying out of the way.  The ending was a little predictable however but all in all I would recommend this one.  We watched this over 4 sittings and that did not take away from the movie at all.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Blog Number 392

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

     

OK, now that I have your attention.  Today was the day I hit the 30 lb mark!  Woo Hoo!  To think I lost more weight than 2 of my bowling balls used to weigh (I used 15 lb bowling balls).  Incredible!  I only have 2 lbs to go and 10 days left to do it in.  I think I might actually make it.

What a busy week at work.  I am glad it is over although next week is not shaping up to be any less hectic but I guess I should be glad to be gainfully employed.  I did make a few new friends in Guadalajara, Mexico.  Again, I am amazed at some people's ability to speak such good English.

Tonight the wife threw together some fried potatoes with some ham chunks and an onion all topped off with some freshly grated sharp cheddar.  Neither kid is fond of onions (ok, they each hate them with a passion).  This does not stop the wife and I throwing onions in almost anything.  I mean, its our house and we're paying for the food right?  The kids will just have to eat or starve.  On my potato mixture I put some bbq sauce.

There is this little store the wife visit's weekly called Miller's.  They have all sorts of neat stuff I guess (I have never been there personally though the wife has tried to get me to go for a long time now).  One thing we bought recently was the above pictured bbq sauce.  It is both Hot and Spicy (as you might imagine).  Let me restate that.  It is both incredibly Hot and incredibly Spicy.  A little dab will do ya.  We also enjoy their homemade salsa and just about everything else we have tried from there.

Tonight I am bowing to the immense social pressure and setting up a Facebook profile.  Xanga allows you to post your blog directly onto Facebook from the new blog section so I figure other than set up and some initial invitations I might be able to avoid speding too much time updating it.  The wife already has a profile and has caught up with several high school buddies to I think I will give it s shot.  I am sure it will result in a blog or two.  Well the weekend is here and it is time to enjoy it.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 391

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Ugh, I am oh so close to hitting the 30 lbs mark in my weight loss that I can taste it (though I would not eat, I am on a diet you know).  Hopefully tomorrow will be the break through day.  There was a get together tonight that involved (free) ice cream but I was not even tempted.  My eye is on the prize.  I cannot be moved.

I had to put in about 90 minutes at work last night.  I needed to do some work after normal business hours.  This kind of thing is bad if you are on Eastern time like I am.  You have to wait until 8 pm (5 pm west coast time) before you can do after business hours work.  I was able to hang out at home until around 7:45.  The kids were going to sleep in the same room (the son's room) and fall asleep to a movie.  This sort of behavior is usually reserved only for the weekends.  The son has a trundle bed so the daughter sleeps in it.  They love to do this.  Since this is the last week before we start schooling, I deemed this week "weekend during the week" week (meaning they could fall asleep to a movie every night if they wanted to do so).  I had to set a few ground rules.  They mostly revolve around the movie selection process.  Without rules, the process can be rather chaotic (and sometimes borders on violent).  I finally solved this by setting a timer on the stove to 2 minutes and stating that unless a movie was mutually agreed upon in that time frame then no movie would be watched.  Anyway, the kids were able to head into the bedroom right after I left for work so the wife did not have to deal with them alone (after having done so all day).

I had estimated 90 minutes for this work.  You can ask the wife but I am terrible at estimating how long things will take me when I go in at night or the weekends.  This puts some added pressure on me actually.  I mean, it is at night or the weekend so I do not have a time line to meet.  No one is waiting on me at work so I could take my time.  The exact opposite happens really.  I find myself trying to meet my (poorly thought out) estimate that I promised the wife.  Fortunately for me, last night I hit my mark and everything worked pretty good this morning when I logged into work.  There were a few minor issues with the changes I made last night but all in all it was not too bad.  This is good since most of my day was spent in meetings with everybody and their brother.  Most of them were informative but not rather productive.  In fact, after a 3 - 4 meeting that actually made progress and solved the problem and issue that was the reason for the special meeting.  I was on a high until the 4:30 meeting that went no where but at least by the end of it I could head home.  Dinner was just tuna salad and a side salad so I probably could have had ice cream tonight and been OK.

Well it is past my bedtime and the treadmill will be calling me soon enough.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 390

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I somehow forgot to blog last night (I don't count the Tuesday Weigh In entry as an official blog, you will notice it is not numbered like the rest of my blog entries).  The daughter stayed with my mother last night so it was just the 3 of us.  The front yard really needed mowing since we avoided doing it over the weekend when it was very hot and since Monday night we had the KASH kick off meeting.  After some BLTs and corn on the cob, the son and I undertook the task of the front yard.  There are shady parts that hardly need mowed (even after 2 1/2 weeks) but the parts closer to the road that get all the sun were so high they were bogging down the mower almost.  After about 90 minutes and some manly sweating we were done.  Then after a shower, we sat down and finished off a movie that we had started maybe a week or two ago (review is below).  12 more days until I hit 40 and I find it hard to believe that I am actually this old.  I don't feel that old (man, I have heard so many old people use that phrase that it must be some sort of proof that I really am old).

One thing about dial up access is that if you have a large patch or update to a program, it could take a long time (like days).  For instance...

I started this patch download about 2 weeks ago.  When I get up in the morning, I log into the internet and check my email.  I then open Adobe Acrobat Reader and continue the above pictured update download.  Another day or 2 and I might be done with it (which by that time Adobe will undoubtedly have another patch for me).  I think my dog emulates the waiting for dial up internet patches well.

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:  This one does win the award for the longest movie title I have watched.  I don't think the kids got into this movie very much even though there is the classic Indy action scenes (and bugs and snakes of course).  All in all a good movie and it was nice to see the familiar characters once again.  The plot did plod along there for a while but maybe it was due to the fact that we watched the first hour a while ago and just watched the last half last night.  I was happy that they brought back the Marion character but the ending was a little hokey (I think I have used that word twice now to describe a movie, I need to get the thesaurus down maybe).  Anyway, not a movie for new fans really unless they go back and watch the first 3 movies to get the inside jokes.

We have started Premonition and are about half way through that and I have started The Ring Two (since the wife refuses to watch that one although she did get through the first one with me a while back).  Well it is time to get dressed and head into work.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Tuesday Weigh In

Greetings,

    I was shocked by both yesterday's and today's progress.  After being disappointed by most of the week's lack of progress, the last 2 days were a nice surprise.  I am researching my next goals so I will have something to keep me interested in my health but I am not going to fill you in on the details until after my 40th birthday.  I don't having any planned times for eating out until my birthday dinner (which we are actually celebrating on my birthday) so (again) I am feeling like I might actually reach my goal of 180.  It is definitely coming down to the wire.

Jon

Date	Weight1	Weight2	Weight3	Average	DaysToGo	Lost	Last7	Pace
08/05/09	185.0	185.0	185.0	185.0	19	27.67	1.00	179.9
08/06/09	186.5	186.0	186.0	186.2	18	26.50	(0.67)	181.6
08/07/09	185.0	184.5	185.0	184.8	17	27.83	1.33	180.3
08/08/09	185.0	185.0	185.0	185.0	16	27.67	0.50	180.8
08/09/09	185.0	185.0	185.0	185.0	15	27.67	0.67	181.1
08/10/09	184.5	184.0	184.0	184.2	14	28.50	2.50	180.5
08/11/09	183.5	183.5	183.0	183.3	13	29.33	2.50	179.8

Blog Number 388

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Tonight was the big KASH kickoff meeting.  KASH (Kokomo Area Schools at Home) is the local home school group.  The kickoff usually features a speaker or two and many booths promoting everything from colleges to more kid oriented activities like a local martial arts school.  You get to mingle with other home school parents and encourage each other.  Mind you the beginning of the school year does not need as much encouraging as the middle of the year but usually a good time is had by all.  Several of our local church attendees are home schooling so we saw a few familiar faces.  The wife signed up to man a booth promoting awareness of the Charlotte Mason method of teaching.  This is too detailed of a subject to go into here so I will leave it up to you to google it if you want further details.  The wife does organize a monthly club discussing this method which is usually held at the nearby Starbucks.

I had nothing but trouble at work today.  I had worked some over the weekend so I did not anticipate coming in this morning and having tons of emails that might have come in but when I arrived there was a note on the door indicating that the network was down in the building.  I recalled that I had a meeting at 9 with several people in EMEA (an acronym for Europe / Middle East / Asia) and I was supposed to host a demonstration.  With no network this was not possible.  I made a few calls and found someone else who could back me up while I was just going to dial into the call to answer any questions.  I drove down the road to a former place of employment to use their network but when I turned on my laptop I was met with a blue screen.  It was not THE blue screen of death but blue nonetheless.  It indicated that it was doing some sort of data dump due to some cryptic problem.  This took about 45 minutes to complete but eventually worked.  I listened into the call and was able to get the laptop up and going about half way through the call.  When the call was over I confirmed the network was back up and going at the office and headed back.  My laptop again appeared that it would take 45 minutes to boot up and I was supposed to host (yet another) demo in approximately 55 minutes.  I called another person who was going to be in the call and explained the situation.  We tried to make it work but in the end once the laptop was up, everything was crashing left and right.  I dreaded calling the help desk but I did not see that I had an option.  I was able to get a backup of my key files just in case and then dialed the 800 number for our help desk.  I navigated the options and finally got to a live person who had me run a diagnostic which ultimately led to the conclusion that my RAM was bad.  She passed me off to the hardware manufacturer and they are supposed to come out tomorrow with more RAM.  I was able to boot up in Safe Mode and eek out the rest of the day (at the lovely 640 x 480 resolution that Safe Mode uses).  I could get to email and to IM so all was not lost.  I just felt as though the day was a total loss though.

When I arrived home the wife presented me with her first attempt at homemade salsa.  Saturday our neighbor flagged us down in the back yard and gave us lots of fresh picked (like 5 minutes before) vegetables.  The wife had all the ingredients for salsa except cilantro and lime juice but after buying those items today she mixed it up.  I have not had that much fresh salsa in my life but this tasted about like the few that I have tried.  Not too bad for a first attempt and the price was right.
 

Well it is late since the KASH meeting went until about 9.  I did want to point you to the son's new blog site (after I accidently locked the xanga account out that I was using for him).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 387

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am actually at work right now doing some off peak hours work.  Occasionally my job requires me to do this.  I was trying to explain this to my son as he thought it terribly unfair that I should have to work (we stopped by before church this morning here at work as well).  Once he understood that if I did this work during normal business hours,  hundreds of people (maybe thousands, it is within my purgative as a father to exaggerate) would have to wait for me to do my job in order to do theirs, then he was OK with it.  I don't mind and try to make up for the extra time by leaving a little early or coming in a little late (like Friday when I left an hour early in order to go to the baseball game with my son).  My son has the same sense of fairness that I had when I was his age.  I could not understand why everyone did not abide by a rather strict sense of fairness and (above all else) attempt to make things exactly fair.  I had to figure out that the world did not work this way on my own, hopefully I can help him to understand this at a much younger age than I did.

The wife and I did finish up a movie this morning.  We started it last night and made it about 1/2 way through (I am trying to remember the last movie that I watched at home in one sitting).

• Annapolis: This kids were heading to bed when we started this one and even though I did not recognize any of the actors in this film, both kids immediately recognized James Franco from the Spiderman movies that he was in (playing the Harry Osborn character).  Not much of a plot here and the main pull was seeing what goes on in a naval academy.  Plenty of testosterone and even a finalé that was very Rocky-like (since it involved a fight).  I don't think I can recommend this one to anyone though.

It has been very hot and muggy this weekend and though the front yard is due to be mowed I am not sure if we will get to it or not.  Even the last 2 days in the (cooler) garage on the treadmill have been a sweat-fest.  The son said I looked like I had just come in from standing in the pouring rain.  So I would place better odds on an afternoon nap than on the lawn getting mowed.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 386

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

As you might remember from the last blog, the son and I (and 20 or so others from our church) headed to the Indianapolis Indians game last night.  We gathered at the church at 4:45 and since the game did not start until 7:15 I figured we had plenty of time.  The pastor explained to me that in the past 7 years or so that they have been making this annual outing, they had never arrived before the game started.  We did not take off until around 5 and made a planned stop about 1/2 way there at a Burger King.  The son and I brought some sandwiches and chips that the wife had packed for us (after I promised the son that in lieu of BK, we would get some crappy food as a snack at the ball park).  We did grab a fountain drink while there however.  We got back on the road and arrived close to where we were parking (at the zoo nearby) around 7:00.  After we walked the 3/4 mile or so to the park, got our tickets from Will Call and then got in line to enter the park, the National Anthem was being sang.  We got to our seats after one out in the top of the first so it was evidently a record for earliest arrival.  I hate being late for anything so I tried not to let this laxidasical attitude toward prompt arrival get to me.  I snapped the below pic from our seats near the foul pole in left field.

The home team was wearing bright pink uniforms that were being auctioned off during the game for cancer awareness (with the brightness of these shirts, we were definitely aware!).  The opposing team was the Charlotte Knights.  Both teams are around .500 for the year and based on the total at bats count for several of the players, they were new to the teams.  It must be hard to be a manager for a minor league team.  To constantly have new players coming in and going out throughout the year based on the needs of the major league team you are affiliated with (in the Indians case this would be the Pittsburgh Pirates).  The pitcher warming up in the above pic threw several balls in the 95 mph range (but they were mostly balls).  He was impressive to watch warm up.  The game overall was a real yawner after the 8 run bottom of the second and the final score is reflected below.

There was a fireworks show afterwards but about 3 minutes into it I got something in my eye.  Since the LASIK surgery, I knew I was not allowed to rub it so most of the rest of the fireworks show was spent thinking about (but not) rubbing my left eye.  I was OK once I got back the van where my eye drops were.  The drive home (my first real driving at night since the surgery) was not too bad.  After dropping people back off at the church, we arrived home around 12:30 or so.  I was very thirsty from the super duper salty pretzel that I bought at the game ($2.75) and the son enjoyed his ($4.25) nachos (worth the trade for BK food).  I don't know that I will go next year unless the son really wants to go (or the wife and daughter).

The wife and daughter are going to some sort of local dog expo today (she did not even bother asking if I wanted to go).  She is convinced that all dogs like me and I agree with her.  For all my dislike of the canine species, they appear to feel exactly the opposite about me.  I joked that if I came to the expo, the dogs would all stop and sense my arrival.  They would then whisper to each other, "Is he the one, the dog-siah?"  "Yes, yes the dog-siah has arrived!"  Tails would then begin to wag, slowly at first but gaining strength.  The wagging would in in unison and even the stubs of the breeds with docked tails would join in.  Their ultimate worship of me would then culminate in what I called "The Licking Offering" and then there would be mass celebration (which I described to the wife this morning but I will spare you of here on the blog).  Anyway, I am not going and I wish them a good time.
Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 385

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Blogging early today since the son and I (and 20 or so others from our church) are heading to an Indianapolis Indians minor league baseball game.  This will be his first game.  When the wife and I were at Applebee's the other day we sat in the bar area.  They have many flat panel TVs there and the one nearest to us was showing a baseball game.  I thought for a second and then realized that this was the first game I have watched on TV this year.  I think I watched parts of a few games last year in Texas since one of the stations my antennae would pick up (that is, my combo butter knife/aluminum foil/coax cable antennae) would show Rangers games on occasion.  The Rangers have been one of the worst teams in the league for quite some time.  I did go to a Frisco Roughriders game 2 years in a row with the men in our ABF.  Anyway, we are leaving Kokomo at 4:45 and will not likely be home before midnight as there will be fireworks after the game.  I volunteered to drive.  Drivers get free tickets but once you figure in the cost of gas this is not a bargain really but I don't mind since drivers control the CD player usually.  We did manager to finish off a movie last night.

• 10,000 BC: Like I mentioned in previous blogs, unfortunately I recently watched a movie with a similar plot line.  The rest of the movie was OK (mammoths and saber tooth tigers) and the actors were believable as our ancestors.  This movie did have added bonus of the main characters being the fulfillment of some sort of bizarre prophecy.  When I see movies involving prophecy I sometimes think that the movie makers make them slightly more unbelievable as a way to slight all religions that have some sort of prophecy involved (whether they have been fulfilled already or not).  Dunno, that's just how I feel for whatever reason.  The other movie I watched with the same storyline was Apocalypto and it had much more violence (garnering an R rating for it alone) so this movie seemed like a kids version of that movie.  If you have not see Apocalypto then you might like this one.  Just don't watch both movies in the order that we did.

I skipped the treadmill this morning as I was feeling very tired when the alarm went off and I will be driving 6 other passengers late tonight so I justified it.  Also, when I weighed myself I hit a new low this morning so taking a day off is sort of a present to myself.  The treadmill will be there tomorrow for me.  Well I can hear the shower being turned off in the back bathroom meaning it is my turn.  I will fill you in on the baseball game tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 384

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My yard is not cooperating.  Is it too much to ask that it ONLY need mowed on the weekends and that it be READY to be mowed at that time?  By this I mean that it should self regulate its growth to coincide with my life.  I allow it free reign on my property and charge it no rent.  It can suck all the nutrients from my ground at leisure and I do ask nothing of it other than some simple growth management.  Too be honest, the front yard has done just that.  It needs mowed every 14 days give or take.  The backyard, well that is another matter.  I tried to mow it every 7 days but it just can't keep up and I don't like having to determine where I have mowed and where I have not.  However, it definitely needs mowed more often than every 14 days.  It has settled into about an every 8 or 9 day cycle now.  On the one hand this is good as only every 3 or 4 weeks do they sync up and need mowed at the same time.  The son does not like this as I pay him to help  per yard per mowing ($2 for the back yard and $3 for the front).  Below is a pic of the back yard (which we mowed tonight)

Those semi-submerged walking stones are not fun to mow near.  I basically mow the outside perimeter and leave the son a nice large square to complete.  I have tried to encourage him to keep the rows straight but he always ends up with the last 10 feet or so being in some trapezoidal configuration.  One of these days he will get the hang of it (this is only his first year in assisting me with the lawn).  We push mow our entire 1/2 acre for now.  It is good exercise and gets me out of the house (and out of in front of the computer).

The daughter snapped a photo of my the other day and I thought I would post it since is shows me sin anteojos (without glasses).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 383

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

The kids are spending the night with their aunt and grandmother so the wife and I had our monthly Date Night tonight.  Date Night usually occurs during the first week of the month.  I took off work about an hour early (since I worked over the last 2 nights) and we had an early dinner at Applebee's.  I used not to like Applebee's but lately I have grown to like it.  They have a 2 for $20 deal where you get an appetizer and 2 meals for $20.  We brought home enough leftovers for a nice lunch for both of us tomorrow.  Not wanting to head home we ended up at the mall.  Well, let me clarify, I wanted to head home but the wife wanted to go walk around the mall for a while.  I want nothing more at the end of the day to enjoy my house and the wife (after spending most of her day at the house) wants nothing more than to escape it.

We typically start with the bookstore (Books-a-Million) though we have been spoiled by the Half Priced Books store so we seldom buy anything.  Next we headed to Old Navy.  We were in the men's jean section and I asked the wife which jeans looked better on me between Boot Cut, Straight or Loose Fit.  Now I was only looking for a simple answer.  You know like A), B), or C).  However she evidently saw a "And Explain Your Answer" at the end of the question and began to explain WHY certain jeans do NOT look good on me.  She pointed to these parts of my body and with a series of faces and hand motions made it clear exactly why I should stick with the Loose Fit option (I won't forget, trust me).  Then I hit the clearance rack and picked out a few pair of pants to try on.  I have been putting off buying any new pants until I reach my weight goal but these were a pretty good buy.  I am proud to say that the smallest sized jeans that I picked up were the ones that fit me the best.  I got them for only $9 (probably about 70% off list).  Eventually we ended up at Sears and I was able to score some 70% off dress socks.  My ability to walk into a store with little or no indication that I am even shopping and then end up finding a great deal on clothing but also find clothing that is in my size and is nice looking is quite upsetting to the wife.  It does not help that I reinforce this fact I guess (Hey look, this is in my size AND 90% off!).

We made it home a little after 8 and after putting away my new clothes and letting the dogs roam a bit, we trudged through another 40 minutes or so of the 10,000 BC movie that we started last night.  She nodded off quite quickly but I am sticking it out.  I think if I had not just seen Apocalypto a few months ago then this movie would be more interesting.  The storyline seems close but overall it is not quite as intense.  I think I will make it through to the end and will provide you with my expert review soon.  Well it is getting to be bedtime again.
Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 382

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I guess I have just been in a blogging mood lately.  Even with dial up access, I still have the desire to log on and express my (random) thoughts.  I worked an hour late last night and almost 2 hours late tonight hosting more training for people in Mexico.  I did have an interesting meeting with a lady in Romania this morning (another country to add to my list).  I am still continually impressed with people who have learned how to speak English.  It has to be one of the hardest languages to learn I would think.  I was IM'ing with a lady in Pennsylvania today about deciding if I was the important one on the call (when dealing with non-Americans) or if they were.  My (American) ego wants to think that I am important but if I am honest with myself I am still the one with but one language to chose from when communicating.  I suppose it does not matter.  The fact that I deal with so many international people gives me a little more job security and that is enough.  We did polish off a movie this morning (watching it in only 3 sittings).

• Swing Vote: An election year comedy that really delivered.  The wife and I spent a little too much time trying to figure out where we had seen one of the minor characters before (Whose Line Is It Any Way) and the supporting cast were all great (Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, George Lopez).  Kevin Costner was very convincing as well in his role.  Overall a nice, smart comedy.  One thing though is depicted in the below screen captures from the DVD.  During the opening credits the left scene is displayed showing a bowling alley in town that offered 12 lanes.  Now this fictional town only had 400 voters so it is unlikely they had more than one bowling alley so imagine my surprise about 70 minutes in when they are in a bowling alley with only 8 lanes (right screen capture).  I might be the only one to have noticed this and my wife just rolled her eyes this morning when I pointed this out to her (and queued back and forth to show her this glaring error).  So other than this faux pas by the continuity people, this was a great movie.

Tonight I revealed a secret to the son.  We are going to go see his favorite band (Stellar Kart) in concert next month.  They are not going to be in Indiana at all so we are making a 5 hour trek to Illinois and then spend a night in a hotel.  He is way pumped about this (shocked was how he described it as I was putting him to bed).  We will be in South Haven, MI over Labor Day weekend and this concert is on Labor Day so I will be taking the next day (Tuesday) off of work to pull this off.  I have not been to a concert in a while (since Stryper's reunion tour - to which I also drove 5 hours to Detroit and was glad a I went).  I will be sure to fill you in on how it goes (as will the son on his blog).

We started 10,000 BC tonight but it might get abandoned as it seems a little hokey.  Well bedtime approaches.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon